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So it is done: What is a good man?
🕑 Added 2023-09-10 05:15:55 +0000 UTCJonathan made his way to his seat, one placed in a very honored one, right next to the birthday girl's family, at the edge of the table. A position that enabled him to look around at everyone present at the party, Kali herself, Ghira, Blake, and across from him, Sienna. Menagerie's Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of Menagerie’s armed forces.
She is loyal to Menagerie, but not to Ghira. If given the right arguments, and incentives, she is capable of following another leader, or even claiming that throne herself. Not out of a scheming desire for power, but out of her own ideas about the future of Menagerie and the faunus. Quite intelligent and even ambitious, but not greedy.
Next to Sienna, sat the Albain couple. They are influential magnates of Menagerie, if not the informal leaders of all of Menagerie's largest capital holdings.
And they don't need to be persuaded, they're already Glenn’s staunchest allies. The Albains know where the money is, and they follow the call of the gold. And there's always something to be had in Glenn.
A little further away sat Professor Ozpin, calm, seemingly almost immovable. If it weren't for the attentive gaze from behind his glasses and the palms of his hands resting neatly on the table, slightly crossed in front of him, you'd think he was a statue.
Judging by how far away he sits, Ghira decided not to show his friendship and alliance with him… Not too overtly, at least. Either to avoid provoking Glenn, or because he has no friendship with Ozpin at all. Unlikely, it would be as if Jonathan invited Ironwood to any ‘private’ celebration in Glenn.
Jonathan sat considerably closer to Kali than Ozpin, and at the corner of the table, actually sitting next to him, was Ghira himself. A gesture of trust and friendship.
Friendship, huh?
Jonathan looked at the salad laid out before him, the appetizer, sumptuously arranged and placed on a large white plate. It was a small work of culinary art created by the hands of Menagerie's most distinguished chefs, as one would expect at a high society banquet, a splendid example of Menagerie cuisine. And not so exotic as to make any of the distinguished guests completely refuse to at least sample it.
In other circumstances, Jonathan would have been happy to sample such a delicacy…
But now Jonathan could only look away, and then carefully pick up the champagne glass, taking a sip, with little or no recollection of how many glasses he had already drunk at this ‘celebration’. He sadly had found that he had lost any and all appetite. In other circumstances, perhaps Jonathan would have been concerned about his image.
After all, his appearances in public were not a daily or even weekly thing. Yes, he often appeared in classes at the Academy, but it was not like the Academy is open to the public. There were very few chances for the open public to meet and greet with Glenn’s King. And so, there were not many sources of information about his private life… For the understandable reason that Jonathan preferred his private life to remain private.
Besides, some moments of his private life required… A certain amount of ‘preparing’ the ground in society. Using Rats to silence simple journalists or paparazzi is a waste of their time, after all.
That's why the few reporters allowed in to film Kali's birthday party, only in brief moments, had the golden opportunity to snapshots of Jonathan drinking his fifth, or was it sixth? Glass of champagne. And Jonathan certainly wasn't keen on being labelled an alcoholic, especially considering he wasn't one.
At the moment, however, Jonathan didn't care about possible future scandals or articles. There was an unpleasant, bile-flavored lump in his throat that had destroyed his appetite, and it was alcohol that Jonathan was trying to wash it away with.
To no avail.
Jonathan, accustomed to thinking about so many things over and over again, could think of nothing. Not of Ghira, not of Ozpin, not even of himself, his mind occupied by a chaotic mix of only scraps of words and phrases flying around in the void, unable to form a coherent pattern.
Something about states, friendship, politics, and a bright future for all… And who would be worthy of that future. And what sacrifices are needed to make that future possible.
Jonathan took another sip before reaching almost forcefully for the salad and forcibly shoveling the fork into his mouth, chewing, trying to hide the grimace, as he was unable to taste anything.
Jonathan wished he could think of something right now. About Ozpin, Ghira, plans, diplomacy, magic, anything to distract him. He wished he could fill his head with a dozen things and considerations, dive headlong into new theories and strategies. Anything that could pull his mind back from this meaningless void, to restart his thought process, to get it working again.
That's the problem, Jonathan. It doesn't matter what you think, as long as you think. Cogito, ergo sum.
But there was a void in his head, an unpleasant, frightening, cold emptiness. As if someone or something had forcibly blotted out all his thoughts, leaving him without his ability to know this world. Just as the silence could be deafening without a single sound in the background, making it seem as if his ears had stopped working, his mind was both empty and all too full.
Deprived of the ability to think, it seemed to Jonathan as if he had lost his own consciousness, like he was in some sort of delirium, unable to string together a single thought.
Rationally, of course, he knew that he was perfectly fine, and he was just suffering from indecisiveness. His mind had not stopped churning with thoughts and plans, it was just suffering from his indecisiveness muddling the water, stopping the cog from turning, even as it grinded itself.
But his rational understanding couldn't help him with how he felt.
Jonathan wanted to think. Wanted to force himself to think about the future, about Ghira and Ozpin, but he… He just couldn't.
It was as if some part of his mind had malfunctioned and would not let him restart the working wheel that was spinning mindlessly in place that was his mind. Jonathan shifted his gaze from the salad, which had been consumed during his silent thoughtless reflection, to Ghira, before returning his gaze to the emptied plate and taking a sip of champagne.
Why is it that they don't serve whiskey here…?
He needed something stronger if he wanted to be drunk enough to stop thinking.
***
Ghira forcibly finished off drink after another, hoping that the inebriation would allow him to try to smile in front of his guests and his wife. But judging by the look on his wife's face as she looked at him anxiously, he was not a good actor.
Which was to be expected.
Lying, politics, intrigue, acting, all these were links in the same chain, a chain he had never been able to grasp, even when he was just the leader of the White Fang.
Ghira's gaze involuntarily tried to slip from the faces of the elites sitting around him to Jonathan right beside him, trying to gauge his mood. But each time Ghira he was about to try, he would stop like a malfunctioning doll, reprimanding himself for such actions, and bringing his focus away from his friend… And each time he would find his gaze slipping back again.
Jonathan looked… Ah, well, what could Ghira say? How could he know what Jonathan normally looked like?
For a long time Ghira had considered himself to be a good judge of character, a judge of people. The fact that he had been able to gather the disparate wants of the White Fang, hold it together after his father's departure, and find a valuable ally in the form of Jonathan had made him think so. But lately, he had suddenly realized that he was a rather mediocre empath.
Jonathan's decision to strike against Mantle came as not just a surprise to Ghira, but one that he could barely withstand, mentally, that is. Suddenly, he was forced to revisit each one of the agreements Jonathan and Glenn had once made with them, now with a far more critical eye. To reconsider the people inside his inner circle, and taking a closer look at them. And, with some expected ‘surprise’ he discovered that his inner circle was full of not bad people.
But ‘not bad’ and ‘loyal’ were two entirely different things.
Though, one last discovery did come as a surprise to Ghira.
Jonathan was a splendid specimen of this sort of thing, but he wasn't the only one. Sienna, the Albain couple, all of them…
And Ozpin.
Of course, Ghira didn't want Ozpin to appear at his wife's birthday party. Ghira may not have been a great schemer, but he was far from being stupid. He was especially not stupid enough to allow Jonathan's main political opponent and possibly a new political ally of Menagerie, in the event of a rift with Glenn, to appear suddenly and without any warning when Jonathan is present. Especially at this moment.
It implied a much closer relationship between Ghira and Ozpin than what actually existed. He might be looking for an ally in case Glenn, Jonathan, turned against Menagerie, he didn’t actually want to make the rift inevitable.
Ozpin had effectively… Invited himself.
Ghira didn't even notice the moment his hand signed the invitation himself, it was like a series of unfortunate events. A family friend of his wife's family, one of the people invited to Kali's birthday feast, had sent a congratulatory message. The message prompted Ghira to have to respond, and after that to contact the family friend's brother, and through him the daughter of the apprentice's uncle. And then lo and behold, like magic, completely unbeknownst to Ghira himself, the invitation to Ozpin had been sent, and even Ghira himself was not entirely sure why he had done it.
There was a blurred, indistinct veil of mutual favors, acquaintances and social connections in his face when he tried to remember such a thing…
What else could one expect from Ozpin?
Ghira wasn't even sure why exactly Ozpin had shown up at Kali's birthday celebration, it wasn't simply to congratulate his wife, was it? And it was unlikely that Ozpin was planning to hold secret talks with Ghira regarding his next moves and political plans. Even if Ozpin did desire such a thing, he would not do so openly after such a public event, and especially not with the current company.
No, Ozpin came to the celebration with a purpose of his own, and that purpose, if it somehow involved Ghira, was only in a tangentially related manner.
Jonathan was Ozpin's main target, but… Ghira had no idea what Ozpin was after at the moment.
If Ghira could perfectly predict that Jonathan would not react favorably to Ozpin's presence, then it would be foolish to assume that Ozpin himself did not know that. So, either what he needed to do was so important that he had to accept risking Jonathan’s ire… Or, more likely, that was exactly what Ozpin was counting on.
To piss Jonathan off, why exactly? Was Ozpin planning to throw Ghira under Jonathan's wheels, and… So what? To show the world Jonathan's willingness to disregard his allies in pursuit of advantage for his state? They would likely just use it as political capital to get concessions from Glenn, while probably laughing at Menagerie’s bad luck, and stupidity.
Jonathan had shown that he was decisive with Mantle, the aftermath of it barely ruffling Glenn’s feathers.
Maybe disrupt some plan of Jonathan's that Ozpin himself had found out about? Jonathan's plan that relied on waiting and long term work, that Ozpin's actions were meant to disrupt? It was theoretically possible, but it also seemed unlikely to Ghira.
For some reason, Ghira felt that Ozpin's plan should have been far deeper and more elegant than this…
However, Ghira had recently found out that he was a poor judge of character, and thus would not be so confident at this point that this was not Ozpin's plan.
The salad was soon replaced by soup, then the main course, and then another and after that another round of appetizers before moving on to dessert, the last meal.
But what in Ghira's past days would have made him smile, that is a sumptuous feast, after which he would have plopped down ungraciously on the back of his chair and, patting himself on the stomach happily. He would then look at his beautiful wife who would be looking at him with an exasperated but fond look, as if to say 'it's okay, I love you like this too'.
Ghira found that he could not swallow the dessert.
Appetite and enjoyment of food was far from Ghira's thoughts at the moment. Instead, it seemed to Ghira that his entire body was filled with thoughts and worries that left no room in it for more food. The salad and soup were easy enough to choke down, but now that he had to put actual effort in it, Ghira found that he could not swallow a morsel more.
Unbidden, Ghira's gaze was attracted Jonathan’s way. The man was sitting in his seat, just as barely touching his own food. Again and again, whenever he tried to pick up his spoon and found that he could not bring the food into his mouth, his gaze would slide over to Jonathan, who had the same trouble as him.
In any other circumstances, Ghira would have found it amusing how similar the two of them were, or the fact that his actions would look like an infatuated schoolgirl to the outsider. But at the current moment, all of Ghira's sense of humor had been squeezed out of him, replaced instead by worry.
How could he not? He just found out that Jonathan was also as deep in thought as he did. Is this how it happened with Robyn too?
What would Jonathan's decision come to? What would Ozpin do? Should Ghira have waited for ’the talk’, or should he just finish his last meal and wait for the RATS agents in his office?
Would Jonathan back down? After all, Ghira was his friend of sorts…
But would Ghira himself back down?
It would be too foolish, wrong even, to demand concessions from Jonathan where Ghira himself had no plans to concede to Jonathan. After all, Ghira did not plan to betray the people of Menagerie that had put their trust in him, from his followers and loyalists.
But what if Jonathan forces me to back down? Deliver an ultimatum? Or would that ultimatum be in the form of a bullet?
Ghira had always tried to maintain not only his image, but in his life the principles of honesty and integrity. He was his father's son, and perhaps he hadn't passed on all of Ka's intelligence to him, but Ghira had always believed that if he was honest, open, and unbending in his convictions. He would not shame the White Fang’s legacy.
But Ghira was also no longer the same person who had read his emotion-filled speech at Ka's funeral.
Years have passed since then, Ghira has made friends, connections, and family.
What if I'm faced with a choice, Menagerie – or my family?
Ghira was always sure that he was a man full of, if not determination, then at least will and indomitable fortitude, but what about his family? Ghira was willing to die for the White Fang, for those who still believed in him.
But was he willing to sacrifice Kali and Blake for it as well?
His beloved wife, who still put up with an aging man that put on a couple of dozen pounds, no longer the warrior that he was, still offering him massages every day after long work meetings? Or his charming, growing daughter, still in the cusp of childhood, thinking that she was smarter than everyone else. Who thought that climbing over the fence of their residence in order to blend in with the common people thinking that his father wouldn’t know, or not send his Secret Service to watch over her?
Ghira was loyal to the White Fang, to Menagerie, and to all the faunus - but he was also loyal to his family.
And Ghira didn't at all want to find out where his true loyalties lie in the end and what he would sacrifice for it.
Ghira raised his gaze to Jonathan again, this time facing him as Jonathan too was looking in Ghira’s way, their eyes meeting.
For a silent moment they had a dialogue, a long and detailed dialogue without words, full of inexpressible emotions, thoughts, and arguments. And Ghira had found his answer.
Then Ghira looked away and covered his eyes.
Come on, Jonathan. Please…
***
What is… the World?
Such an esoteric and vast question, Jonathan. Should I start worrying, or should I congratulate you?
No, it's just that I…
Jonathan shifted his gaze from the champagne glass to the dessert in front of him, then to the champagne glass again, and took a sip.
I don't know.
Jonathan had always considered himself a very knowledgeable and educated man. Maybe not one of those who are called ’geniuses’ by the public and teachers, but a man who was not only intelligent, but also very well-educated.
Not only did Jonathan have all the skills that any man in society should have, such as writing and reading, but he was excellent at solving trigonometric equations, could recite several of Shakespeare's classic sonnets. And, judging by the fact that his reign of Glenn did not end in rebellion, had at least a minimal understanding of sociology and economics. During his reign, Jonathan had created various revolutionary inventions, but he also managed to implement those inventions without causing uncontrollable catastrophic reactions of nations and peoples to his rash moves.
In other words, Jonathan considered himself a man with a very significant body of knowledge, and even a lifetime of experience, and yet…
I don't know anything.
Jonathan is thirty years old now. He could not be called old, but neither could he be called young, at least not without the word ‘relatively’ being tacked on to it. Many people his age usually already acquired a family. A wife, children, a stable job, and began to think not only about their illustrious careers but also about what would follow. Some were starting to think of their will for the first time, and others were calculating their likely pensions for the first time, for their own sake.
People began to think in terms of ‘years’ and even ‘decades’ and the phrase ‘it will be soon, just a couple of years’ turned from mockery into completely ordinary reflections.
How does it feel to have lived three decades only to realize that you know nothing about the world?
Jonathan had always believed that if he didn't know everything about the world, at least he knew some ‘things' about it. Why the sky is blue, why people hurt each other, why day turns to night…
I don't know anything.
But now, at a luxurious ball, surrounded by the elites, many of whom the common people had never been able to see in person, enjoying dishes that people could only dream of and never taste, Jonathan suddenly realized that…
I really don't know anything.
All his life Jonathan had been moving forward, slowly, gradually, sometimes painfully, but still moving forward. He had made progress, achieved his goals, understood the world around him, and in the end, he had been raised, very high, to a place where ordinary people could never have climbed in their entire lives.
And now what?
And now, he found himself here – at the top of this world, among the most powerful and influential, more powerful and influential than most of the elites of this world, and…
Nothing more.
Jonathan didn't know where to go from where he was, lost in the mire. It was as if suddenly he had just understood where he was actually standing, of his position in this world, and it had knocked the ground beneath his feet.
I don't know anything…
Well, Jonathan, that's a start. ‘I only know that I know nothing’, a great position from which to go so far in your speculations.
If… If he really was ready to abandon his plans, why? Jonathan didn't know what exactly was ruling his mind right now, he wasn't sure he'd ever known anything at all.
But you definitely know something, don't you?
Did Jonathan even know any one thing? Absolutely, he knew some things, but none of those things answered the questions that were in front of him now, so what use are they? Or rather, he didn't even know if there was any question in front of him now, he didn’t know what he didn’t know.
What do you know now, Jonathan?
Jonathan furrowed his eyebrows, trying to find the answer to that question in the far corners of his mind. What did he know now? What had he always known? What had he been striving for his whole life?
I want to be a good person.
A thought. The first coherent thought in a long time, the first fact to surface on the turbulent sea that was his mind all this time, the first thought he grasped onto.
I want to be a good person.
The words that began, perhaps, the construction of his entire personality.
What the Old Man had taught him… The years of training… His plans and life on that now distant Earth… It all seemed to him now like a half-forgotten dream from a past life.
Twelve years ago, Jonathan had opened his eyes in this world, he had woken up in Atlas, and he had continued walking forward. Despite how lost he had found himself to be, despite not knowing what awaited him around the next corner, he had kept moving forward. His head then was also full of doubts, questions, emotions, thoughts and… Even then he knew. He knew where he wanted to go, what he wanted to be, even at the lowest point of his life.
I want to be a good person.
Back then, many years ago, he hadn't thought about the sacred meaning of those words. Hadn't tried to measure out with a ruler what is the most correct path to becoming a ‘good person’. Oh, he definitely liked to ponder the secret mysteries of life and philosophical truths, but that's not what led him to the decision to make the move. To save Cinder, to rob a bank, to run away to another city, to adopt Neo… To save Glenn.
We were afraid to see someone in the mirror who would not be us… What has become of that person now?
Jonathan wasn't afraid of that now, to not recognize the person in front of the mirror, and he had mistaken it for ‘growing up’, in being an adult no longer burdened by doubt. Every day he woke up to face his own reflection in the mirror, a doppelgänger with his face, and went on his way. To work, to rule, to read, to tame, to manage, to direct… It turns out that he was simply closing his eyes, and not actually looking at his reflections.
I want to be a good person.
It wasn't some incredible thought or terrible secret, many people lived their lives being good people without ever even thinking about how their own ‘goodness’ could be measured. Never questioning exactly what it was that made them ‘good’ people.
Jonathan Goodman had asked that question often, hoping to deal with it as one deals with other questions, methodically and clearly, with the scientific method and the testing of theories.
And this is where that had led us.
What does it mean to be a good person?
Jonathan has been striving to address this question all his life…
Is it truly such an important question, Jonathan?
Jonathan covered his eyes, welcoming the darkness, as it seemed to him, for a moment that stretched in time into infinity.
What is more critical, Jonathan? The desire to be a good person – or understanding what it means to be a good person?
I don't know.
It always seemed to Jonathan that both of these questions were essentially the same question, one part of the whole, one single question.
How could he describe the feeling of knowing that the one single truth that he based his entire life on, turns out to be a mistake, that he was wrong? That all his life he'd been chasing after one question… The answer to which…
Meant nothing.
Perhaps, just perhaps, one day he would know the answer to that question, would compile the perfect formula to explain what his ‘goodness’ really was, and… What then?
What if, upon learning the answer to that question, you suddenly realize that you don't meet the very criteria you've deduced?
All his life, Jonathan had never developed a real theory to his question at the core of his being. Didn't actually try to get closer to figuring out the answer to that question, he was just…
Looking for excuses. For himself.
That's right. Jonathan wasn't looking for an answer, or more accurately, not an answer that was true. He was looking for an answer that would satisfy himself first and foremost.
Justification, Jonathan. The answer that suits you is called ‘justification’.
Trying to summarize his thoughts to the fact that despite everything, he was still…
A good man.
And that's what it came down to. Jonathan had bumped heads with the man he should have called his friend. The man who was his friend.
And what exactly was he thinking about? How to convince himself not to destroy his family? How not to destroy his state? Or perhaps, how not to massacre hundreds of his friend’s followers?
His state was effective, it was good place to live. It provided a wonderful life for the common people, protected many of them, and did it all only at the cost of little blood and a bit of freedom. Could this be called the actions of a ‘good’ man?
I suppose you could… But what about…
Now?
Jonathan had spent his entire life chasing the elusive tail of the enigmatic question, what is ‘good’ and how to be a ‘good man’. And yet now, after spending so many years searching, the answer to that question was more blurred for him than ever.
Jonathan opened his eyes only to find that he was one of the last ones at the table – even Ghira had already left with his family, to see the dignitaries off.
Jonathan rose from the table before picking up his cane… And, with a willful movement of his hand, teleported it away, into his office, before taking a confident step that looked more confident than he actually felt, not knowing exactly what he was going to do at the moment.
But knowing that this was his last chance.
